Guitar Tricks

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DJL

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I'm a bassist trying to learn how to make neat sounding noise and etc on a guitar, I know that a bassist with a guitar is funny but, I'm serious, so don't laugh.

My question is --- What are some neat guitar tricks? You know, like reaching over with your picking hand and pushing on the string above the nut, or sliding the bass and guitar strings together like playing slide guitar, but getting neat noise instead and etc.

What are some good guitar tricks?

Thanks
 
I had a friend that encorporated a note played on the high e fretted over a pcikup into a lead. Not exactly a trick, but it sounded cool.
 
I know this guy who can do this great "meedley meedley meedley" thing, way up on the tiny strings, where you can mash your fingers on... He's half Mexican, answers a lot of mail...

:rolleyes:
 
i also know this mexican guy that does this great rythm guitar thing


freak
 
here's some

1, the helecopter - take pick and slide very slowly down the a string between the bridge p/u and well were it starts turning into a note. by slowly I mean let the pick grab the winds in the string. no distortion for this one.

2, the horse - tremlo needed, fret high e around the 15'th fret, pick, pull up on tremlo, waver it down. distortion on this one.

3, the motorcycle - tremlo needed, push the tremlo down all the way, pick a string, raise tremlo at moderate speed, drop for gear changes. no distortion needed but can be used

4, just a sound effect, this one is actually usable in music, delay needed, set delay to about 400 ms, take side of pick and run across the top 3 or 4 strings around the normal picking area. make small chirps that sound cool with delay. no distortion

there's tons of tricks, but most of them aren't really usable musically. most of them are used up anyway. it's better to just learn how to play real music, find tricks accidentally while jamming.
 
Rage against the machine

listen to some rage against the machine. Tom morello could write a book on these types of tricks. Everything from playing with an allen wrench to unplugging his guitar cable and getting weird noises from touching it to his pickup.
I don't even like rage but like i said, morello is prob the master at this type of stuff.
 
This one is along the same lines as the helicopter trick:

Turn your pick upside-down and place it across the first three strings so that the B string is in the middle while the E and G strings touch the ends of the pick. Starting at the twelfth fret, gently and slowly slide the pick down to the end of the bridge. You will hear the pitches go up, and then back down. When the pitches go back down it makes the sound of a plane flying by.

Cy
 
Bass Freak said:
i also know this mexican guy that does this great rythm guitar thing


freak
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Yeah, i heard that too... this cool "jug jiggy jug jiggy jug jiggy jug jiggy jug jiggy jah JAH!" rhythm trick! :D
 
Hey, thank you everyone for the guitar tricks, some of that stuff sounds frickin good. I just learned how to push on the body and neck to wang the strings, and how to make the chicken sound, way cool. Any more tricks?
 
I think one of the coolest "tricks" is alternate tunings. Just pick a chord and tune the guitar to it! Experimenting with this kind of thing is a real eye opener.

Also sometimes I like to stick my nail on a vibrating string to get an extra edge on a note.
 
Hammering harmonics on a chord or lead run is pretty cool.

Pull-offs while dragging your pick hand finger(s) up & down the strings is cool too.

Another cool one is "plinking" i.e. picking the strings between the bridge and tailpice or between the nut and the tuners.

:cool:
 
DJL said:
I just learned how to push on the body and neck to wang the strings
Click to expand...

Be careful not to push too hard, I've seen many cracked necks (cheap guitars) from people doing that. it's better to use a tremlo guitar for bending more than little 1/4 steps (ala. Pink Floyd - Money.)

and the hammer/ pull off down the neck can be a visual too ... hold guitar vertically in one hand and start high on the neck, let the guitar slide through your hand while you H/PO.

beer bottle sliding - self explanitory, drink few, pick up (empty)bottle in pick hand, and slide, works best on high e.
 
Here's another pic trick, it takes a little practice, try touching the string that you are picking with the side of your thumb at the same time as you pick. This creates some sort of harmonic and gives you those "whistle" sort of sounds. A cool looking trick with two guitar players (you gotta be real tight for this) is while faceing each other to pich the other's guitar while doing the fingerwork on your own, it's hard but it impresses the hell out of an audience. If you want, try useing a mic for a slide, this can get a little weird if you leave the mic turned on. Experimentation and imagination will take you a long way in this area. Keep enjoying.
 
Joe Satriani has this trick that he calls "Lizard down the throat" ...pick a note on one of the lowest frets and then slide up. And now the trick...push down your whammy bar as you slide so the note stays the same. If you do it pretty slow and accurate it sounds pretty weird. You get the sound of a finger sliding on frets but only one single note.
 
Lopp said:
And the Dragon comes in the NIIIIiiiiiIIIIIIIiiiiiiiIIIIIiiiGHT!
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Burninating the peasants!!! Burninating the cottagaaiiaaiiss!!

Oh yeah, man. That guy knows all about virtuosos, and arpeggios, and tremolos......





Aaron
 
rogga_bogga said:
Joe Satriani has this trick that he calls "Lizard down the throat" ...pick a note on one of the lowest frets and then slide up. And now the trick...push down your whammy bar as you slide so the note stays the same. If you do it pretty slow and accurate it sounds pretty weird. You get the sound of a finger sliding on frets but only one single note.
Click to expand...

One of my all-time fav's!

Another good one, a la "Hordes of Locusts" : do pull-offs with your left hand on the low E string, say from fret 8 to 7 to 5 , repeatedly. While doing this, lightly touch the string with your right hand palm and run it up and downt the string. With distortion you will get all kinds of harmonics that sound like computer talk or something. EVH does this in many songs too.

Other EVH noises: push a sting down with your right hand until it actually touches a pickup pole an then let it back up. Kind of a "pop/ boink" sound. (from Romeo's Delight)

With your pick, scrape the trem springs in the back of the guitar. Sounds great with thick flanging. (Cradle will Rock)

Strum the strings behind the nut. (Runnin' with the Devil)

Rub all the strings really hard with your right palm. (Atomic Punk)

Play your guitar like a slap bass (Mean Streets intro)

Turn down your volume. Hit a chord or a single note. While the note rings, turn up your volume. Repeat as needed to produce cool, ethereal notes with no attack. (Cathedral)

This next trick only works with a Floyd Rose bar: hit a note and dive the bar (not too much). Now, instead of smoothly bringing it back up, just let go and let it snap back into place. Zing!

Or how about another JS trick that only works with a reel to reel tape deck: Arm a track for recording. Play a note on teh guitar. While the note is sustaining, hit the record button. You will only hear the effect when you play back the tape: the notes starts out insanely high and quickly warbles down to pitch (I Just Can't Slow Down)

I could go on and on......

Aaron
http://www.voodoovibe.com
 
This thread keeps getting better and better. I've been trying some of this stuff and I'm not sure I'm doing it right, but I have stumbled on to some neat noise trying. Please keep posting the guitar tips here. Thank you very much. Oh, and I won't bend the neck anymore, thank you for the warning.
 
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I used to take a nail file and put little ridges on the side of all my picks. Then I could do pick scrapes across all six strings, sawing the strings with the side of the pick with the ridges, back and forth really quickly. Cool sound.

Also, doing the same thing with a metal slide sounds nice. Just rub it really quickly perpendicular to the strings anywhere on the neck. With a lot of delay, reverb, and volume swells, this ends up sounding like a bunch of violins.

Another pick trick: push down on a fret with it, kinda like you're trying to stab the fretboard with the tip. Same idea as tapping, except that you're using the pick to sound the note instead of your right hand finger. You can also turn the pick sideways and make the tip of the pick just slide back and forth over a string at a certain fret really fast, giving off a bubbling sound.

My favorite is the aforementioned Floyd Rose trick, though. The cool way to do it is to turn the whammy bar away from you, facing the bottom of the guitar. Then all you have to do is just smack it to get it to go down and bounce back up. Looks neat on stage. You can usually get the same sound, except a little more subdued, by pulling up on a string while fingerpicking it; kinda like "popping" on the bass guitar. This has the same effect of causing the floyd to vibrate, thus creating that "purring" sound.

Finally, in terms of sheer sonic weirdness, Adrian Belew does a trick in "Pretty Pink Rose" where he pushes down the whammy bar and rubs and hits the strings with it. The bar acts like a pick, but since the whammy bar is moving, the notes are constantly shifting in pitch. Sounds like a bagpipe.

Hope this helps!
Ryan
 
Thank you, I'm filing on a giutar pick right now. :)

Oh, and here's another guitar pick trick I just learnd. Hold the point of pick so it just barely sticks out of your finger and thumb, so you can puck and mute at the same time. It makes a neat false harmonic type sound.

Too bad you guys can't watch me (a bassist) trying to learn this stuff, I have a feeling I look really stupid and you'd all die laughing out loud watching. lol.

Please keep the guitar tricks coming, and stuff that looks cool on stage, you know, that show-off type stuff. This is fun. Thank you everyone.
 
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